Reflections from Reflections

 I have access to WebMD, but I don’t practice medicine. I can play a siren sound, but I can’t ticket a speeding driver. I can spell ‘engineer’, but I can’t build a bridge. These people are professionals. They know what they’re doing, and they’re paid to do it. We in A.A. aren’t, at least in the settings of our rooms, professional therapists or rehab specialists. If I talk to an active alcoholic, I bring my personal experience only. There is no remuneration. This has immense worth; there is no ‘angle’ to sharing what’s worked for me. I receive no monetary payment. This is so important to the one-on-one encounter. The value is in the sharing itself, not what I may get from it.  The whole purpose is in sharing what it was like for me, and what my turning point was. Personal. I get to show a person who is still picking up that first drink, even though they’ve promised themselves over and over not to, that it is in fact possible for them as well. I have the opportunity to hold a la...

 I’m the type of person who likes rules and regulations. I admit it. Everything is neat and orderly. Cars pass on the left. No surprises. No exceptions. I don’t live like that, though, thank goodness! Life is full of surprises and fun and spontaneity, none of which can be contained into a tidy Stepford world. I just wish everyone did things MY way. Who hasn’t been part of a planning committee? Remember how everyone (except the quiet eye-rollers) had an opinion about Every. Little. Thing? Resentments abounded. Anger and voices were raised. Almost every participant had the True Vision, and tried to bend the others’ views to match. Ugh. It couldn’t have been much different for the founding members when trying to organize this new, radical yet simple formula for sharing true, lasting sobriety. In the end, it all boiled down to the Third Tradition: The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. The only  requirement. Seems too simple to work, but over eight ...

 I can be a real braggart. I suspect this is tied to low-self-esteem issues, and is the egos’s way of asserting itself. I must have recognized this at some point in my journey, because, written on the bottom of the page of this Daily Reflection is “STFU, Sandy”.  Inner peace and ease of being is quiet. It invites, it has an allure; it, like the Dude in The Big Lebowski, abides.  Our eleventh tradition tells us that our public principle is “attraction rather than promotion”. For me, this applies to my own public life. When it’s appropriate, like when someone asks about myself or shares a personal concern which would best be addressed by a 12-step fellowship, I’m happy to share how my life has been and continues to be changed.  Newcomers to AA can be so overwhelmed by their new freedom, they loudly proclaim their sobriety. I know I did. Jaded friends and family, used to seeing broken promises and dreadful decisions, don’t hear the words; they’re waiting to see the “pro...

 Like millions of other people, I used to suffer from “terminal uniqueness”. It’s in remission today, but it reappears from time to time if I’m not careful. It shows up in the guise of “yeah, but”. The very thing that helped me see the truth is what I get to offer today - my unvarnished experiences, the strength I found in living in harmony with my spirituality, and the hope which that gives me. Sharing that with another alcoholic helps us both remember who we are, and that life needn’t be as heavy as it can sometimes feel. When I am able to share from my depths, I get to understand myself better. When the person with whom I’m sharing is able, bit-by-bit, to share their own weightiness, a Light shines on them, gradually lightening their load in degrees matching their openness. I am so very grateful for the loving, supportive people who have listened to me, made me ask questions of myself, and gently guided me by their personal examples. In that process, my burdens don’t seem so hea...

 The times when I’ve felt most joyfully at peace are when I’m being of service to others. Funny how that works! There’s no room in my rumination for self-anything when I’m thinking about someone else and their needs in a healthy way. I’ve experienced the unhealthy way of trying to help others, and it turns out to be when I’m still thinking of my own comfort first. If I can’t be happy or fulfilled unless you change something, I’m on the wrong track. When that’s the case, I’m either being manipulative or codependent, which is not a gift to either of us. I didn’t expect the profound shift in my spiritual connection when I came into the rooms of A.A. - like so many others, my only thought was that I needed help with my inability to stop at one drink. I became willing to stay stopped as my spiritual connection became more obvious to me. It’s an odd and wonderful thing to discover that the need to drink has become secondary to my desire to live my life as I feel directed by a Power great...

 This is the first time I have considered the concepts of ‘bondage’ vs. ‘bonding’. Off the bat, it strikes me as similar to learning the difference between ‘humiliation’ and ‘humility’.  Early on in my sobriety, I had the old belief that having humility was either false, or a precursor to being humiliated. Saints could maybe have had true humility, but I was no saint. Any humility I displayed was a false front, an assumed virtue. It was false: it was the mask that my ego wore to ward off humiliation. Being a front, it didn’t work, but I had nothing else to work with. So, in thinking about the concepts of ‘bonding’ and ‘bondage’, I see again the difference between something I want and something I shun. Certainly people in bondage can create a bonding with others in the same pickle jar. I like the bonding which encourages personal growth - that which I find in and out of the rooms of A.A. when I choose to associate with like-minded people. People who don’t view the personal grow...

 Willingness is a popular thread in all of the Steps. Willingness to awaken to the possibility of a spiritual experience paves the road and readies me to traverse that path. For some, it can be like Paul’s road-to-Damascus experience, happening suddenly, forcefully, leaving no doubts. For me, it was more gradual, hampered by my repetitive stopping to ask “but why?”.  False pride acts as blinders to the Truth. If I keep thinking that I am alone on my path through life, I will feel that loneliness. For me, the strength of the knowing that I am a spiritual being, connected to The Spirit of All, is both humbling and reassuring. I can ask for help, then set aside my fear or worry. I can ask for guidance, then listen as my intuition tunes in and assures me. I can ask for the words I need, and know that they will come.  I feel it. I know it. And I can forget it in a moment if I start indulging in anything that starts with “self” - self-pity, self-seeking, selfishness. When I for...